The performance of various software or hardware functions on a mobile device may depend on characteristics of the surrounding environment. Specifically, when a mobile device has functionality that depends on wireless communication, the wireless reception and transmission efforts of the mobile device may become less efficient or may become fruitless due to interference with a given wireless signal. For example, areas with a dense amount of tall buildings may be characterized as urban canyons, which may impede, among other signals, GPS signals. In such a case, any attempts by the mobile device to search for a GPS signal while the mobile device is in the urban canyon may be a waste of processing cycles or battery power.